Grasp: making sense of an object

An object’s meaning and the knowledge it may convey is not a passive content. To acquire knowledge we must actively seek it, through engagement with our senses. I researched my experience of knowing as a maker to understand how meaning, articulated in the object through making, can be gained by others in a reciprocally active way. If we approach the object for the first time as if we could touch or handle it, even if we might not be able to, the mere possibility of grasping confers meaning. By grasping, the body becomes the measure that yields the memory of experience. Each time we grasp we find meaning, and those meanings can be partial, incomplete or even be just a fiction that makes sense.

This piece deals with coming to terms with the fact that audiences generate a myriad of interpretations from interacting with a piece. In showing it I allow others the freedom to understand what they do. But still, there is some level of control, I propose handling as a model for how meaning and knowledge can be acquired from novel objects.